propelled by powerful machinery, and exclaimed, "Bill!"
Mr. Bramble—for it was he—scratched his head, grinned feebly, and looked for assistance to the major.
"A brand from the burning," said that gentleman.
"That's right," said Mr. Bramble; "that's me."
"The scales have fallen from his eyes."
"What scales?" demanded Mrs. Bramble, a literal-minded woman. "And what are you doing here, Bill, when you ought to be at the White Hart, training?"
"That's just what I'm telling," said Percy. "I been wrestling with Bill, and I been vouchsafed the victory."
"You!" said Mrs. Bramble with uncomplimentary astonishment, letting her gaze wander over her brother's weedy form.
"I been vouchsafed the victory," repeated the major. "It was 'ard work, but did I falter? No, I did not falter. There were moments when it didn't seem 'ardly possible I could bring it off, but was I down-hearted? No, I was not down-hearted. I wrote him letters, and I sent him tracts. I tried to wrestle with him in speech, too, but there was a man of wrath, a son of Belial in a woollen jersey and a bowler hat, who come at me, using horrible language, and told me to stand still while he broke my neck and dropped me into the river."
"Jerry Fisher's a hard nut," said Mr. Bramble, apologetically. "He don't like people coming round talking to a man he's training, unless he introduces them or they're newspaper gents."
"After that I kept away. But I wrote the letters and I sent the tracts. Bill, which of the tracts was it that snatched you from the primrose path?"
"It wasn't so much the tracts, Perce. It was what you wrote about Harold. You see, Jane"
"Perhaps you'll kindly allow me to get a word in edgeways, you two," said Mrs. Bramble, her temper for once becoming ruffled. "You can stop talking for half an instant, Percy, if you know how, while Bill tells me what he's doing here when he ought to be at the White Hart with Mr. Fisher, doing his bit of training."
Mr. Bramble met her eye and blinked awkwardly.
"Percy's just been telling you, Jane. He wrote"
"I haven't made head or tail a word that Percy's said, and I don't expect to. All I want is a plain answer to a plain question. What are you doing here, Bill, instead of being at the White Hart?"
"I've come home, Jane."
"Glory!" exclaimed the major.
"Percy, if you don't keep quiet, I'll forget I'm your sister and let you have one. What do you mean, Bill, you've come home? Isn't there going to be the fight next week, after all?"
"The fight's over," said the unsuppressed major, joyfully, "and Bill's won, with me seconding him."
"Percy!"
Mr. Bramble pulled himself together with a visible effort.
"I'm not going to fight, Jane," he said, in a small voice.
"You're not going!"
"He's seen the error of his ways," cried Percy, the resilient. "That's what he's gone and done. At the eleventh hour it has been vouchsafed to me to snatch the brand from the burning. Oh! I have waited for this joyful moment. I have watched for it. I"
"You're not going to fight!"
Mr. Bramble, avoiding his wife's eye, shook his head.
"And how about the money?"
"What's money?" said the major, scornfully.
"You ought to know," snapped Mrs. Bramble, turning on him. "You've borrowed enough of it from me in your time."
The major waved a hand in wounded silence. He considered the remark in poor taste. It was true that from time to time a certain amount of dross had passed from her hands to his, but this harping on the fact was indelicate and unsisterly.
"How about the money?" repeated Mrs. Bramble. "Goodness knows I've never liked your profession, Bill, but there is this to be said for it, that it's earned you good money and made it possible for us to give Harold as good an education as any duke ever had, I'm sure. And you know yourself you said that the five hundred pounds you were going to get if you beat this Murphy, and even if you lost it would be a hundred and twenty, was going to be a blessing, because it would let us finish him off proper and give him a better start in life than you or me ever had, and now you let this Percy come over you with his foolish talk, and now I don't know what will happen."
There was an uncomfortable silence. Even Percy seemed at a loss for words. Mrs.
Vol. xlvi.—84.
